


Down the Rabbit Hole

by EmpressMermalaid



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Drug Abuse, Drug Addiction, Human Bill Cipher, Loneliness, M/M, Mind Rape, Mindfuck, Psychological Horror, Psychological Torture, Self-Harm, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-18
Updated: 2016-02-15
Packaged: 2018-05-14 18:33:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,321
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5753836
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EmpressMermalaid/pseuds/EmpressMermalaid
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's not the ringing in your ears or the taste of over-the-counter cough syrup on your tongue that tells you that you have a problem.</p><p>Oh no.</p><p>It's the waking up at 4AM, scratching at the walls. It's the itch at the back of your throat when you've been staring at the floor for too long. It's the way your eyes never seem to sit right in your face anymore.</p><p>It's orange pill bottles in your drawer and a knife stashed under your pillow. It's the feeling that you'll never be okay again.</p><p>You are invisible.</p><p>You are alone.</p><p>Your name is Dipper Pines.</p><p>And you have a problem.</p><p>[[Addict!AU in which Dipper yearns for the feeling of being possessed by Bill Cipher.]]</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Wherever You Go

**Author's Note:**

> Holy trigger warnings, Batman. I'm not kidding when I say shit gets real and things take a bit of a dark turn. Pray for Dipper Pines. The poor, broken child. I don't know what I did to him. Believe me when I say it was entirely an accident. Somewhat. This is definitely not a ride for the faint of heart. So if you have any qualms about the following topics, I highly suggest you read at your own risk: mindbreak, drug abuse, alcohol abuse, psychological torture or gay triangle porn. Thou hast been warned. 
> 
> Side Note: This takes place in a timeline where Grunkle Stan was never working on bringing Ford back, and so the Basement has been untouched since he left.

It's not the ringing in your ears or the taste of over-the-counter cough syrup on your tongue that tells you that you have a problem.

Oh no.

It's the waking up at 4AM, scratching at the walls. It's the itch at the back of your throat when you've been staring at the floor for too long. It's the way your eyes never seem to sit right in your face anymore.

It's orange pill bottles in your drawer and a knife stashed under your pillow. It's the feeling that you'll never be okay again.

You are invisible.

You are alone.

Your name is Dipper Pines.

And you have a problem.

 

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You're not quite sure when you ran out of oxycontin, but you could have sworn you bought some a few days ago. You _know_ you bought some a few days ago... unless time has escaped you again and that sallow purple jaundice rimming your eyes is not because you haven't slept since last night, it means you haven't slept since last week. How you manage benders like that with enough opiates in your system to drug a horse is the true mystery of Gravity Falls. Where did the time go. You're finding that you're having to ask that question more and more these days. Where _did_ it go, though.

_Why_ did it go.

Your body creaks when you move, bones clicking like rusted gears. How long had it been since you moved? What were you even doing? You look around the room in the hopes something will jog your memory.

You're in the Basement.

You're not allowed in the Basement.

There's a rule. A _law_. Not the kind recognised by any State sanctioned officer, no, but the kind you forged in the smithery of your mind at three in the afternoon when you decided you couldn't stand to find yourself waking up in a field again, surrounded by shallow, finger drawn ravines, your hands blackened with dirt.

But what are you doing in the Basement now?

Surely you weren't trying to replicate one of those many “field trips”, were you? You'd lovingly assigned them that moniker over a strong cup of coffee one morning after, the bitter sludge reminding you your milk had soured and your hands were still crumbling clay.

But you wouldn't do that again.

The last one had been no fun.

The last several had been no fun.

None of them had been fun.

You have a problem.

For once you can smile because the fact you have a problem isn't a reference to how your hands shake if you begin to feel too awake. It's not a reference to how the last time you saw a human face, she was walking away from you – a shooting star winking out of existence. It's not a reference to how your calendar claims that happened last month, but your calendar is also 3 years out of date.

You have a problem because for once, you know exactly where you are and what you're doing there. You've run a simulation in your head. You don't like where this path leads you.

The Mystery Shack was long since deserted. A forgotten relic. An ancient memento to a life you once lived in the past. Where had all the others gone, you wonder. You have a sinking feeling that at one point in time you knew the answer to that question, but the excuses and reasons given to you by the people you hold most dear – Mabel, Grunkle Stan, Wendy, Soos – were nothing more than white noise where there should have been memories.

You don't even remember when you first found the Basement, do you? Oh and how you _swore_ you'd never forget. You're a hypocrite, Dipper Pines. You're a wreck.

You claw at your own skin, raking your nails down your arms until they smarted. A bad habit you picked up a long time ago. You suddenly feel human again. You can move.

You grope blindly around you for the journal you know will be there. It takes you an alarmingly short time to find it. Your fingers close around leather hide and bronzed clasps and wilting parchment that bore the ink kissed ramblings of a madman. You don't even have to look at it to know that you're going to find a dozen new freshly scribbled pages in the back of the book, meticulously written and explained, ominous iconography decorating every square inch until the words began to bleed into one another.

You want to look at the book, but you're still staring at the walls. What's over there, Dipper? You see nothing.

Do you remember what colour pill you took last night, Dipper?

You know, the ones you found in a jar at the back of a shelf down here in the Basement, hidden behind a vending machine. That glass jar was nearly half the size of your head and it was almost full when you found it.

Isn't that it oer there on the floor – empty and in pieces?

Oh dear.

You think back to when you found it. Everyone was still around back then. Maybe that jar was the start of all your problems. Maybe it was the end. You had just discovered a real mystery in the Mystery Shack – a secret Basement, untouched in decades, full of more gadgets and gizmos than your ambitious, curious mind dared to comprehend. You're not sure what drew you towards that particular shelf or that particular jar – there were so many other, more interesting things just lying around in that accursed Basement. But drawn in you were.

Maybe it's because they looked like candy – cheerful, chalky pebbles of paracetamol sized pills in every colour of the rainbow, a different little picture on each of the hues. The red ones bore a tear drop, or maybe it was a drop of blood, stamped into the tops like a brand logo.

The star patterend blue ones smelt like dry salt, and the dust left by the orange ones tasted faintly of hand sanitiser. Bones were carved into the green pills. They made you nervous. You tried not to touch them. You were fairly sure the pink ones were one of those party drugs you heard about on the news, with its garish colour and the bold exclamation point sitting proudly at its centre.

You remember being puzzled that the design on the purple ones was a sun. You thought a sun would have better suited the yellow pills, but those were marked with a heart. The purple ones were the only ones whose bodies varied in colour – some were a royal purple as syrupy as blood, others were the same dusty mauve as a twilight sky embraced by butts. You wondered what the significance of that was.

You crawl towards the broken jar on your knees, dragging the journal with you. You begin to pick up the pieces under the pretext of “cleaning” – but let's be real here, you know what you're doing. You're checking to make sure that the jar really is empty. That you're not overlooking a stray pill you can squirrel away for later when you need a hit.

Your fingers scrape jagged glass and you hiss in pain as hairline cuts fuse to your hand, splitting the skin and carving nearly invisible ruby estuaries into your fingerprints. You glance around warily. You hope noone is watching you. Nobody else lives here now but that doesn't mean you aren't being watched. You always feel like you're being watched. The hairs on the back of your neck stand on end.

A doll with lifeless eyes lays abandoned in the corner. It's out of place here. Everything in the basement is science and technology. Its sleek. It's adult. This doll is a child's toy. You stare back, as though challenging the inanimate object to look away. A standoff. It's at odds with it's surroundings, sitting primly in ruffles, a crack through one eye so bad you can see into the back of it's skull. It's grotesque if you dwell on it too long. So you don't dwell on it.

Looking away, the dolls eyes follow you. They don't move. Of course they wouldn't move – suggesting otherwise would be crazy – yet somehow you feel it's judgemental stare prickling at your back. It's just a puppet you remind yourself. A harmless puppet.

But you've been a puppet before, Dipper Pines.

You of all people should know what it's like.

The doll is a lifeless vessel, and so are you.

It seemed like an aeon ago, but there was once a time you had your own soul. It was full, and robust – with all the energy and heart of an innocent child.

That's what he saw. A child.

And that's why he took advantage of you.

It started with Mabel putting on a puppet show to impress some inane _boy_ and it ended with your life. Not your existence – you still live and breathe, your heart still beats and your body still feels – but you were changed by that encounter.

Bill.

His name is Bill.

Your chest tightens in exhilaration, and your pulse quickens until it's a frantic drumming in your ears just from thinking about that night. Bill was in your head and the things he could do – _oh God the things he made you feel_ – you could never forget it. The world seemed to lose some of it's colour, and you felt off for so long after he was expelled from your body.

You knew you shouldn't have even been thinking about it... but before you knew it, you were obsessed. No natural thing seemed to give you the same feeling as being possessed – especially by Bill Cipher – it took a wrong turn somewhere in your early teens for you to find that drugs, namely depressants and painkillers, were the only things that came close. But they made you paranoid. They made you angry when they leached out of your blood stream from your last high. You couldn't keep up. They didn't come anywhere near close to the feeling of Bill blanketing your mind, making you feel nothing but a dreamy rush of bliss, but they were the closest goddamn thing you could find.

So you took more. It made sense. If coming down from a high made you lash out, then why not simply stay high? That felt so good. _So good_. You were relaxed, clear headed... you could finally concentrate on your main obsession. You'd fallen to the wayside somewhat with solving the mysteries of Gravity Falls, but you told yourself otherwise. See, what you were going to achieve – your masterful plan – was to find a way to communicate with Bill. The journals only had warnings. You were going to get answers.

Your mouth grew dry at the sheer thought of being Bill's puppet again. He could control you, and you'd feel nothing but a wonderful absence of mind, like free floating in a swirl of dusk. You'd feel great. You'd feel whatever he wanted you to feel. Maybe Bill would be so grateful for you giving your body over to him that he'd reward you. You felt warm just considering the possibilities of what he might give.

So you chased the high of being Bill's toy, and you chased away all the people around you. You never could understand why they weren't more happy for you. You were achieving your goal of figuring out Gravity Falls! Who better to ask than Bill? He was immortal, right? He probably knew what happened to make this town so strange at it's beginnings. Hell, you suspected he may have been at the middle of it. He always seemed to have a knowing glint to his eye whenever he was close enough to taunt you.

But your family didn't understand. They said it was insane. They said you were endangering them all. They begged you to stop. That was what was truly insane. Stopping? Now? You were just getting started! One by one you stopped seeing their faces. One by one they gave up on you. They were the ones in the wrong – you were fine. You just had to crack the key. Just one needle in a giant haystack. You just had to find the right trigger, and he'd be back, and you'd be right and then you'd show them. You'd show them all. They'd be back once you finished your work, you were sure of it. Sometimes that thought is all that kept you going.

The sight of the empty pill jar made you feel a little unwell, though. You had no idea where these came from. You had no idea who they even belonged to. Grunkle Stan? Maybe. You didn't think he even knew about the Basement. If he did, he certainly hadn't been down here in a long time and he never gave any indication that he had noticed you going through his things. You didn't think it seemed likely. You thought of those pills as a gift from the universe.

And what a gift they were.

After some hesitation, you decided to take one. Just one. An orange pill – the ones whose taste made you think of a hospital – it tasted a little like soap and sterilisation and that made you trust it just a little more for some reason. It also had a tree emblazoned in the centre, just like your trademark cap. You liked the looks of this pill. You felt as though you had some kind of rapport with it.

And after all, what's the worst that could happen?

You remember when you took it that it felt like nothing had happened for the longest time. You were beginning to feel disappointed. But then your veins lit up and your head rushed as though you had stood up too fast into a strong light. You were squinting in the middle of the day. You were laughing at nothing. And that's all you remember of that trip. Maybe the first fifteen minutes at most. The rest was a sickening blur as though the world's rotation had been sped up on its axis and you were the only unfortunate soul who seemed to notice. You came to a few hours later in the woods, your shirt torn as though you had attempted to wrestle with a vine of thorns. You were wearing different socks than what you remember putting on that morning, though your shoes remained the same. When you dragged yourself back home, no-one seemed to have noticed that you'd gone. You had a faint headache, which, curiously, felt more like you'd hit your head on something than a side effect of the pill. The tender spot on the back of your skull seemed to support your hypothesis.

You left the jar on the shelf for a long time after that. That orange pill had hit you harder than anything you'd taken before, including the few times you'd mixed up a haphazard cocktail of cough syrup and sleeping pills which had knocked you out completely.

But slowly, surely, you found yourself drawn back in. You'd tried a different colour next, wondering if they were different pills mixed in together. You found that they were. It was a curious thing. Each of the colours seemed to incite a different reaction in you. The blue stars made your heart leap into your chest and you were fairly sure you were seeing colours in things that hadn't been invented yet. The red ones tasted faintly of cinnamon and pepper, and made you feel incredibly sleepy. You took that one on a full moon, you remember it quite clearly... so you were naturally puzzled to wake up, presumably the next night, but the moon was waxing, a thin sliver of white in the sky. You hated to dwell on what that meant.

You saved the pink and the green for last. The bones on the green made you think of the stereotypical skull and crossbones for poison – which the noxious lime colour certainly made you think of. You were pretty sure the pink was something lame, like ecstasy. That was _so_ easy to get in this town. It's always like that in small towns – nothing much to do but drink and find more creative ways of forgetting you lived in a small town. You hadn't tried it before though, so you supposed it was cool to get your first hit for free. Thanks, whoever owned this jar. You popped a green bone in your mouth and screwed the lid back onto the jar, stowing it away on the shelves where you found it. You didn't want to risk moving it anywhere else, especially not somewhere that it might get stolen. It seemed safe enough down here in the Basement.

Surprisingly, the green trip was your favourite to start with. You felt really good, really _alive_ , as though everything you'd experienced in the world up until that point was simply a simulation, and you hadn't really been born until this very second. You marvelled at the world, at life, and smiled at the futility of it all. You weren't sure what was and wasn't real, and quite honestly, you didn't care. If the paint melting off the walls in kaleidoscope was an illusion of the mind, then you didn't really want it to stop. You remember most of the trip when you took the green pills. They were a pleasant trip, and you laughed at yourself regarding your prior misgivings. You came to in the shower, ice cold, the water stinging your skin as it beat down on you from above, plastering your hair to your forehead.

But the pink pills.

Oh Gods.

The pink pills.

You were expecting a typical party drug. You were expecting to let loose a little. You dressed up nice – somehow, at some point, you'd purchased a decent looking shirt and tie. You figured if you were going to party by yourself, you should at least look good while doing it. You were also being smart, you figured, by pre-emptively looking somewhat respectable in case your drug addled mind took you outside, into public, where people _might see_. You're not sure why you cared what they thought. You're not sure you did care. It was more a force of habit from a more normal, ritualistic lifestyle you used to lead.

The moment you took it, you were instantly transported somewhere else. Was it all just in your mind? You couldn't be certain. You were seeing things your brain had no frame of reference to be able to compute – shapes and colours and sounds surrounded you in a way that made you fee as though you were the alien in a world that wasn't your own.

_Hey there, Pinetree!_

You whirled around at the voice. It was familiar. So familiar. But it couldn't be...

You were standing on a plateau of black ice, cold and sleek beneath your feet, the sky stretching above you in an endless mirage of pink and orange, bleeding in to one another like paint poured down the drain. Shapes your mind couldn't comprehend hung freely in the air, twisting and turning in on themselves in a way that was entirely physically impossible. Clearly, wherever you were, it was the standard, as each thing your eyes fell on was more different and insane than the last. You had never felt more awake. You had never felt more alive. You were more lucid now that your entire existence up until this point.

_Over here!_

You spun on your heel so fast you overbalanced, pitching forward. Gravity felt wrong. You fell forwards weightlessly, but before you hit the ground, it inverted itself and you were standing on solid ground once again, your body feeling heavy enough to be immovable.

_Careful, Pinetree, this isn't quite what you're used to!_

“Bill,” you breathed, reverently, like a saint in worship, the sound of his voice making you feel more comfortable in your skin, more at home, than anything had in a very long time.

_You remember me!_

“Of course,” you sigh happily, still scanning your surroundings for any sign of him.

_Quit looking, kid!_

You furrowed your brow in confusion. You didn't understand what he meant, to stop looking. You heard him. He was here, wasn't he?

_Wrong, wrong, wrong!_

Bill's voice echoed, as though it was coming from within your very soul itself and you were the only person who could hear it. Bill laughed, a haunting, musical sound that thundered in your ears, boisterous and robust in every way you remembered his disconcertingly friendly voice to sound. You weren't surprised he was able to respond to your thoughts. Mind reading seemed like a minor feat for the demon.

_I can read you like a book, Pinetree!_

“Where are you?” you asked aloud. Your voice was strangely distorted coming out of your mouth, as though you were talking underwater with a filter fitted over your teeth.

_Where am_ **I** _?_

Bill laughed.

_Kid, where are_ **you**?

That question struck you as odd. As far as you were aware you were still standing the Basement, facing the shelf where the pill jar was open from where you'd fished out tonight's entertainment. Even if everything here looked warped and incomprehensible, you were fairly certain it was just a trick of your mind – an illusion. The drug-fucked hallucinations of a cross eyed daydreamer. Wasn't it?

_Not a chance, kiddo. You've stumbled on to something pretty interesting, if I do say so myself!_

“Bill,” you said again, almost pleadingly, “I...”

_You wanted to see me again, right?_

Bill took the words right out of your mouth as you blinked back... tears?

“Yes,” you breathed, your throat tightening around itself as you continued to search the horizon for any sign of that all-seeing eye.

_You've gone through quite a lot to get here, you know!_

“I know, I know,” you were starting to sound almost desperate now. You became dimly aware of your nails scratching at your own wrists in anxious turmoil.

Your scientific mind, once alert, once brilliant, still had some battery life left in it after all the damage you'd done with sedatives and sleeping pills. You were desperately trying to calculate how long you might have left in this weird dreamscape, based on the life span of the other pills. Maybe a few hours? Maybe a few minutes? God, you wished you could think clearly...

_About five minutes, kiddo!_

Five minutes? Shit. That wasn't enough time. That wasn't nearly enough time. Your mouth was watering at how close you were to your goal – so close you could taste it. You weren't totally sure what you wanted from Bill, but you knew that whatever it was, only _he_ could give it to you.

_That's messed up, Pinetree! I love it!_

“What? What's messed up?” you plead with the emptiness. You're starting to spin in circles because the more Bill talks, the closer he sounds, like he's right behind you. What you wouldn't give to be able to turn and see him right there before you. Sorrow pooled in your gut at the thought of getting so close to your prize, only to fall inches short, so close your nails _just_ scraped the surface, so close you had the taste of ancient magic on your lips and runes in your eyes.

_What you want me to do to you!_

“But I don't-”

_Yeah, yeah,_ **you** _don't know what you want me to do. But I told ya, kid! I can read you like that journal you're toting around! An open book! And let me tell you, there are some real sick stories in here!_

“Bill, I want you to possess me again!” thinking quick, you threw caution to the wind and blurted out the pressing issue on your mind. You may only have this chance, and time was running out. You could feel it, like the sands of the hourglass were trickling down and running over your skin like a million lifeless gems of worthless, wasted seconds.

_Aww, Pinetree!_

You weren't sure if Bill had emotions, but if he did, he might have been sounding choked up right around now.

“Just do it!” your desperation turned to anger. You briefly remembered your sister telling you a million years ago that you were getting testier, haughtier, quicker to anger lately. In that instance, you may have finally understood what she meant.

_Easy now, kid! I can't just go willy-nilly possessing you! We're not even in the same universe right now!_

“ _PLEASE!”_ you begged, your vision was beginning to swim and the world was beginning to mist up around you. You couldn't tell if it was from the tears in your eyes or the drugs wearing off. You didn't have time to know.

There was a moment's silence where nothing really happened. Your chest heaved with the weight of your shaky breaths that rattled in your lungs, and your fingers slid into tightly balled fists. Bill was eerily quiet.

And then the world shut down around you, patches of the sky dimming suddenly like a light had been switched off. The darkness flickered to life around you, blocking you out, fencing you in, until you were a sole figure alone on a patch of shiny, black ice, with tar coloured midnight oozing at you from all sides. You were cold. You were alone. You were scared and you were so overcome with urgency you couldn't stand it.

A shadowy hand coiled from the darkness. It was made of the same glittering onyx smoke as the walls around you, thick and opaque, with wisps rising from it's surface like steam. It reached for you and you gasped in surprise, fear tasting like spice and copper on the back of your throat which was suddenly dry. Your eyes were transfixed. Like a velvet clad glove, the very human shaped hand slowly sought you out, almost tentative, as though the owner could not actually see you, but knew you were there none the less.

Bill.

Bill Cipher...

The hand gently hooked a finger under your tie and pulled, a playful, intimate gesture. You stumbled a step or two closer to the infinite void that stretched before you, where the hand was one with the curling, coiling smoke beyond. You hadn't realised you were holding your breath until you were so close to the shadowed walls you could see nothing else.

And then the hand pulled you, fingers still coiled around your tie, just half a step more. You gasped and all the air in your lungs rushed out at once. You couldn't breathe. You were suffocating. An infinite blackness enveloped you and choked you at once, filling your nose and throat and eyes until you were blind and drowning. You wanted to scream, but you couldn't. You wanted to struggle but you couldn't.

And then... lips. Gentle and soft. Ghostly and cold. Pressed against yours in a kiss more meaningful and tender than you dared to allow yourself to hope for. It was everything you needed. The mere shape of Bill's lips, frozen and dark, pressed against yours made your heart sing and your head throb. Your skin burned beneath his touch, the smoky black air breathed into your lungs made that feel good. It took all your pain away like it was never there. It gave you life.

_Sweet dreams, Pinetree._

Suddenly, everything faded into nothingness, and you felt as though you could breathe again, like being pulled backwards out of an endless pool of water and into the world. The dreamscape was slipping through your fingers and though you struggled, nothing you did seemed to prolong your stay.

“ _NO!!”_ you screamed until your voice broke, cracked and sore and bubbling into a broken sob. The scream echoed in your own head, your voice muted in this horrible limbo as reality clawed you back into it's gnarled clutches.

He was gone.

Bill was gone.

The taste of wine and blood stuck to your lips.

You slept with tears in your eyes.

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	2. Whatever You Do

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "You were dead.
> 
> It had been a good run, but this was the end of the line.
> 
> At least the torture of what you assumed was purgatory was over.
> 
> Now you were free to float through all of time and space as nothing but a blind-mute concept, something intangible and empty drifting into a void of all of human existence. Or so you thought. It turns out, your eyes were just closed.
> 
> You opened them and discovered you were in a bathtub, half filled with some very evil, murky looking water."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys, Empress here with the eagerly awaited Chapter 2 of Down the Rabbit Hole! I hope you're all enjoying the ride so far. We're only half way there, and I hope each of you will continue to show your support with all of your kudos and kind comments ⌒°(❛ᴗ❛)°⌒ I'm so very grateful to have each and every one of you as readers, and I do hope you'll continue to support my work now and in the future!

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This was years ago now.

Water under the bridge.

Live and let live.

You spent a very long time documenting the effects of the various pills from that mysterious jar. Your thoughts were that if you really were only taking them to help unravel the mysteries of this town, then you would be writing down as much as you could. Speculating on as much as you could.

At first it was just a few sentences, tracking what you noticed, what you remembered. At first, it was never very much. Your trips always ended in a black out and how much time was missing from each seemed to vary. But slowly, surely, you began to notice patterns and trends. You observed. You waited. You watched. You notated your own mind in a terribly far removed kind of way, like a _real_ scientist would observe a Petri dish of curious bacteria.

You figured out that each of the colours essentially had the same effect. If blues were pain killers, like paracetamol, then purples were like vitamin C – each colour range did the same thing. Eventually, you had taken enough of each that you were fairly certain you could accurately describe the effects of each one. You even took a stab in the dark at hypothesising what their intended use was for. Some you could even guess the main ingredient. You didn't want to dwell too long on what kind of person that made you if you could accurately identify the secret ingredient in an innocuous pill that left you a total wreck.

Eventually, you began to notice something curious. You were remembering more and more of your trips, as though the strength of the drugs was wearing off. As though you were building up tolerance. You were strangely excited by this. You wondered what you would discover if you were finally lucid enough to notice what happened when you went dark at the end of your little soirees with the pills. You weren't sure when the idea first occurred to you, but you had the crazy notion that the pills were designed so that you specifically wouldn't remember what came at the end. This just made you all the more curious. What were the pills hiding? Could the pills even hide anything from you? Coming close to getting some kinds of answers was very inspiring.

It was around that time that you noticed that you were seeing less and less of your family. Your friends. The people who made Gravity Falls brilliant. The people who made Gravity Falls alive. You couldn't imagine this town without them. You could have just about kicked yourself that you didn't notice until it was far too late that you had pulled away from everyone you loved completely. They had been trying to reach out to you. God, how they had been trying. You were blind, so blind, you never noticed. You never even saw. They were right in front of you and you looked right through them.

One by one they left.

They were invisible to you.

And now, without the support of those you were supposed to love, you were invisible too.

You were invisible.

And you couldn't say that you hated it.

It gave you time to work. Wasn't that messed up? You were happy they were gone and out of your business because it meant that you had so much time to do what you needed to do. You had so much spare time now that you weren't worrying about hiding your problem. Not that you had a problem to hide, of course not. You were perfectly in control. At least, that's what you told yourself every day. Whatever helped you sleep at night, right?

Before you knew it, a few scribbled sentences in the back of your journals became several pages. And then dozens more. And then one journal was filled to the brim, and you had to start on another. And another. And another. You numbered them. There was a certain cathartic ambience to a row of books organised by chronology. With this, you could easily track the effects of the drugs. You could track your theories. They were a mess of crossed out paragraphs and doodles. You had tried sketching the design you found in the dirt by your head one rude awakening in a field later. Another time it was by a rarely used highway. It was a miracle you hadn't passed out on the road. That could have ended very badly. You had hitch hiked back to Gravity Falls in the tray of a frazzled out pick up truck, nestled between a bale of mouldy straw and garbage and a grease slick tool box.

You'd walked twenty-five miles from home.

Your feet weren't even sore.

As the days grew into hazy weeks, which trickled down into fly-by months, you began to grow restless. You had taken another pink pill as soon as you woke up from the last one. Comfortably nestled in your bed, you awoke feeling light as a feather, as warm and as comfortable as a hibernating bug, or so the proverbial saying went. Remembering the events with Bill, you jolted awake as though you were suddenly on fire. Wide eyed and on edge, anxiety biting at its own nails in the peripherals of your mind, you raced downstairs, fumbling over pyjamas you didn't recall putting on. Pyjamas you didn't recall ever owning, though they fitted you perfectly.

The jar was untouched from the night prior. Prim and proper on its shelf. You sighed with relief. You weren't entirely sure what you were worried about. Nobody knew it was here. Nobody would have stolen it either, when there were a million more valuable and way cooler things just lying abandoned at the foot of the stairs. Nobody would have made the effort to dig through the trash to get to the golden goose – your secret stash.

You really were getting paranoid if the thought had even occurred to you.

You wolfed another down so quickly you barely had time to swallow properly, the chalky pill getting stuck halfway down your throat and making you cough. You eventually forced it down dry, the taste doing nothing to impress your taste buds. As though to punish you, your body made sure you felt it travel all the way down from your mouth to your gut, pricking and poking at your innards.

You waited with bated breath.

The tension hanging in the air like static was so thick you could just about feel it bearing down on you.

Seconds ticked by.

More seconds ticked by.

Minutes dragged on in their stead.

Your entire body was tense, ready to be transported to that mysterious place you saw last night. Was it all in your head? Did your body actually travel somewhere? Astral projection? Who cares! You had to get back. You had to see Bill.

The kiss suddenly flashed to your mind, so raw and real you gasped at the memory, your lips growing cold like poison. They tingled, a tiny prickling under the gums like a million shards of glass fluttering beneath your skin as though they were being stirred by a casual breeze. Everything about that felt real. Could it really have been all in your head?

You spent so long thinking about that kiss, and the kisses to come you hadn't realised you'd been standing still in the middle of the Basement for the better part of an hour. Where had the time gone? You found that question curious, as though you weren't about to ask yourself the very same thing over and over for the next three years.

Your eyes began to mist over, glassy and unfocussed like a porcelain doll, dressed in mourning black, like the one on the very table behind you. You wouldn't cry. You weren't crying. Big boys don't cry. Your cheeks were wet with disappointment, a bitter fruition of wasted effort and near misses.

Why wasn't it working?

What made it work last night?

What was different?

A small, self loathing voice in the back of your head whispered darkly. Bill did this. Bill did this on purpose. He doesn't want to see you. He never wanted to see you. He doesn't want you. He doesn't want you. HE DOESN'T WANT YOU. HE DOESN'T WANT YOU.

It was impossible.

Bill needed you, right?

Bill wanted you.

Of course Bill wanted you.

Of course Bill needed you.

He needed a warm body to possess and you were throwing yourself at his feet. Why wouldn't he want you. Why hadn't he already taken you? You found it hard to believe that for all of his power and omnipresence, he couldn't see how desperate you were. That he couldn't see how desperately you were trying to reach him. That he couldn't see how desperately you were trying to gift your body to him. How you didn't care what he did with it. How you just wanted to feel alive again.

Overdose be damned. You grabbed the jar of pills, anger drowning out that little voice nagging at the edges of your skull, making you numb and in pain all at the same time. Your body was like ice. Your heart was like fire. You were at war with yourself yet both armies were on the same side. You grabbed fistfuls of the drugs, scattering them on the table until the jar was empty and you were facing a child's jigsaw of rainbow gumdrops. You tossed all other colours aside. You didn't need them.

You had thought you had tossed them aside without care, but when you looked, they were arranged neatly in the jar from whence they'd came. Did you do that? Who cares! You didn't care. You didn't care about anything.

If this was to be your final experiment, then you would be happy.

At least you'd have your answers.

At least you might not have to feel rejection and failure any more.

This was one way of feeling weightless again.

All or nothing.

Your hands closed around all of the pink pills – every last one – and you crammed them all in your mouth at the same time, greedily sucking them up like candy in the palm of a kid at Halloween. The bitter powder coating your tongue made your throat instantly dry. You tried to swallow and gagged, the sudden lack of moisture in your mouth making your throat seize and your teeth clack painfully. You stumbled forwards, hands flying up to grip the edge of the shelves as you retched, stubbornly sealing your lips over the mouthful of pills. There were so many they were bulging at your cheeks, lumpy and pitiful. You could have tried to take them one by one with some water, the kitchen was just upstairs, but you were so tunnel-visioned in hatred and despair that the thought never occurred to you.

If you couldn't have this, what _could_ you have? What was the point of all your research? What was the point of anything?

One by one you forced the pills down your throat, fingers stuffed between your lips, shoving them hard against the plate of your tongue until they passed the point of no return. You gagged, dry retching as your body protested this grotesque punishment but you couldn't care less. You weren't stopping until every single one of those stupid, horrible little pills was leeched into your blood. Your throat was sore and scratched dry by the time you managed to stomach them all. The last one slipped past your oesophagus, your finger tips crammed against your tonsils until you were dripping spit down your hand and you took a great, shuddering breath. Your cheeks were dirty with salt and grit, stuck to your face with tears.

You swayed, waiting for the other world to claim you.

||><||><||><||><||><||

The first thing you became aware of was a sharp pain in your chest.

It burned.

 _Oh God, did it burn_.

You felt as though somebody was trying to weld your skin to the sun. You screamed silently, your voice robbed from you. A rational part of you figured it served you right for shotgunning all those pills dry. This was punishment.

You were blind too. You prayed to Gods you didn't believe in that this wasn't permanent. You thrashed in terror but your body was broken, and it was nowhere. It felt like you didn't even own a body any more. It was the same feeling of helplessness you had when Bill took control of you, with none of the pleasure, only excruciating pain. It was agony. It was torture.

As pain became the only world you knew, you became somewhat muted to the shock value. Through your strange sense of numbness you began to realise it wasn't heat you were feeling, it was a different kind of pain. Like being cut. Sliced open. Horror stills of surgeries and medical gore flashed through your mind. You had no idea what was happening to you. You had no idea where you were. You were going to die and you regretted it. You were stupid – _stupid_! You didn't want to throw your life away after all! You wanted it back! All of it back! Please!

And then you heard something, so faint, so quiet through the screaming terror coursing through your veins that you weren't even sure you'd heard anything at all. It was whispered on the edge of a breeze, on the farthest plateau of your consciousness that you were sure you only caught a snippet of what was really said. You strained to hear more but all you could pick out from the garbled message was a soothing croon...

… _almost there, Pinetree..._

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You were dead.

It had been a good run, but this was the end of the line.

At least the torture of what you assumed was purgatory was over.

Now you were free to float through all of time and space as nothing but a blind-mute concept, something intangible and empty drifting into a void of all of human existence. Or so you thought. It turns out, your eyes were just closed.

You opened them and discovered you were in a bathtub, half filled with some very evil, murky looking water.

That was always a great sign, waking up in what was possibly once an ice bath.

Especially after those nightmares of film grade hospital horror. You wondered what you were down. A kidney? A liver? Two livers? Did you have two livers? Oh God, your head was muddled and pounding. This must be what it was like to be stupid. You tried to picture a very childish diagram of the human body. Which internal squishy bits could you live without again?

Carefully you peeled up your shirt, soaked cold with water, shaking with a chill that had settled into your bones a few hour sago and also in fear of the surgical scars you were sure you were going to find.

If you had been worried about scars, what you found was worse.

Much, _much_ worse.

A surprised yell tore itself from your throat, bouncing around the bathroom until the walls were screaming back at you. Dried blood covered your chest completely, a red ooze so dark it was nearly black. It looked noxious and evil. But what was worse was what the blood surrounded.

A triangle.

A giant triangle.

Splayed across your chest, so big it joined the base of your throat to dangerously close to your ribs. The triangle was filled with runes and symbols, a crazy web of mysticism you couldn't even begin to understand. The detail was insane. Lines so fine they were like pencil sketches decorated the edges of each icon, in a terrifying but admirably neat display of penmanship.

Except this was no drawing.

This was carved into your chest.

Deep rivers snaked down your flesh, marking your milky white skin with dark matter. You were still screaming.

An eye stared back at you from the middle of your chest, lovingly engraved and set into your skin, a nasty looking blistering scar beginning to congeal at it's heart. It made you sick to your stomach. Sick, sick, sick. You were going to be sick.

You were.

You retched over the side of the bathtub, vomit puddling in a disgusting splatter against the tiles. Your head hurt. You clutched your chest in agony and found that it hurt too. You scrambled to your feet, tipping over drunkenly and falling, jarring your wrists and your knees as you fell heavily on your outstretched limbs. Water was thrown across the walls as you thrashed clumsily, hooking your upper half over the side of the bath and dragging yourself to dry land with a sickening heave.

You couldn't breathe.

Air rattled in your lungs as you struggled to remember how.

You tore your shirt from your body, your chest now bare with that hideous _thing_ creeping over your flesh, making you feel dirtier than you had in your whole life. The pinkish hue to the water on the floor told you that the muddy hue butting the bath water was likely blood.

Oh God.

Who did this to you?

You weren't ashamed to admit that you cried. You were suddenly so lost, so alone. You were scared. You were hurt. You were broken.

Nobody could save you.

You wished you really had died.

Ugly sobs wracked your body. You felt so small, lying curled up around yourself on the bathroom floor. So helpless. So weak.

So violated.

Who would do something like this to you?

It was a long time before you were brave enough to open your eyes again. Before you were strong enough. You had never felt quite so torpid. So sickly.

You were cemented to the floor, your limbs made of lead, your chest throbbing as a constant reminder of the horrors your body had endured. Fresh blood smeared up your arms that you wrapped tightly around yourself. Something unsettling began to tug at the edge of your mind.

Oh God, no.

It couldn't be.

Last night trickled into your conscious brain, in snippets and flashes of memories that seemed so disjointed you were sure you were remembering them out of order.

Pain, incredible pain.

Blood running down your chest.

Blood running down your arms.

Your heart beat thumping adrenaline into your brain until you were giddy.

Blood dripping to the floor.

You were standing in front of a mirror.

You had to get this perfect.

You had to draw this right.

You had to do it for him.

You had to.

You had picked up a knife...

You had heard Bill's voice, you were sure of it. The ache in your heart wasn't entirely because of the horror story on your chest. You had heard whispers, in ancient languages you didn't speak but you understood the message perfectly. You remember feeling a rush of pride. A narcotic stronger than anything you'd ever tasted. Bill hissed a string of ancient sounds through one ear and out the other. He was so close. So close you could feel the cold change sweep into the room the moment he made his presence known to you, even if you couldn't see him. He needed you. He needed you to do just this one little thing... just this one, tiny thing that only you could do for him...

You didn't even hesitate.

You wanted desperately to be able to remember what he said to you, every last word. You wanted to commit it to memory like a record, you wanted to archive every last breath down the back of your neck, you needed to remember it all. It was all that kept you warm in the dead of night these days.

Dipper Pines, you had more than just a problem.

You _were_ a problem.

||><||><||><||><||><||

 

 

 


	3. I Will Be Right Here

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What better way to celebrate the impending end of Gravity Falls than with another chapter of Down the Rabbit Hole! Happy Valentine's Day, kids!

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Your scars never quite seemed to heal right. You weren't certain, but you suspected there was some very dark magic binding itself to your skin through the cracks. In the light of day you could almost marvel at how intricate and beautiful it was, though you did your best to avoid looking at it directly for fear of becoming lost in the maze of perfectly even, neatly spaced spirals and twists and turns of each sigil bound to your flesh eternal. It didn't seem to scab and flake like normal wounds. Instead, it bled like paint, oozing midnight red into the bandages you'd haphazardly mummified your torso in. When you removed them a day later, the wound had sealed curiously, like the ravines had been filled with an impenetrable gel, as black as night and gelatinous in a grossly organic kind of way. It was like someone had poured a dark glaze into a wood carving.

The pain had subsided considerably.

Cheap vodka and the last of the emergency baby aspirin at the very bottom of the medicine cabinet seemed to take care of that. Your mouth tasted like death, and your body fell in line like a matching piece to a set.

As soon as you could stand up without blacking out you staggered down to the Basement, tripping over your own feet and clutching at the walls for support. You were a man on a mission. You had a job to do. You couldn't take another minute of this - of being under the out of control impulses of a damn _substance_. There was only one way you were going to lose control of yourself and you had no idea how to make it happen. There were no pink pills left. It was over. It was finished. You were angry at nothing. You were angry at yourself.

You stumbled down the stairs and made a beeline for the shelf where the jar was. You couldn't have it in the house any more. You couldn't trust yourself around it You had to destroy it. You were so, so worried you couldn't. You were worried you _shouldn't_.

Your chest throbbed in pain, tender against even the lightweight fabric of your shirt. It steeled your resolve. You couldn't go through that again. You wouldn't go through that again. You were almost proud of yourself. You weren't quite sure what you were going to do exactly, but it felt like some kind of progress.

You all but threw yourself at the pill jar. Were you screaming? Maybe. Maybe you were screaming. You were certainly screaming in your head, and it seemed to echo there. You didn't have time to think about whether or not you were verbalising that outward spew of terror and anger and injustice. It wasn't like anyone was around to know either way. You upended the pills onto the desk, some rolling away and bouncing to the ground. A great clatter rang out, like rain on a tin roof, beating down on the wooden tabletop until the jar was empty.

You savoured the feeling in your hand for just a moment. Of the jar being empty. You always were a jar half-empty kind of guy and well... now it was completely empty. You hadn't found something quite so liberating as this in a long time. You really did scream as you hurled it across the room. It fell embarrassingly short – your overarm sling _clearly_ needed a little work but it shattered into a million pieces against the floor all the same. The glass cracked and rained against the cold cement tiles of the Basement, tinkling almost musically. It did not last nearly half as long as you needed to be truly satisfied.

Now you had another problem to deal with.

Handfuls of pills were scattered over the table. Looking at them like this, they were so small, so unassuming. How could something so little do so much damage? How could you have _let_ them? A momentary flash of clarity left you angry at yourself as much as you were hopeless to dig yourself out of the pit you had fallen in to a long time ago.

You snatched them up, blinded by rage and sorrow and vertigo. You were light headed though your feet had never felt quite so heavy, as though the concrete had grown like vines, wended about your shoes and tying you to the Earth forever. You finally managed to corral the strays into the makeshift basket you'd made with the loose fabric of your shirt. What now, Dipper? What were you going to do with them?

You walked without having any kind of solid plan. You were sure the right opportunity would present itself any moment. As soon as you saw it, you were sure you would know. Your feet lead you on your own to the bathroom. You had to have gone well out of your way to get here, which confused you slightly. Clearly your subconscious had other plans for you than to simply ditch this poison in the first trash can you saw.

You mulled it over, brow furrowed and fist clutched around a handful of chalky pills. Why would your body have brought you here? It puzzled you, like a mildly difficult jigsaw – you were quite sure it would become apparent to you any moment now. After all, who knew you better than you... right?

… _right_?

Your chest throbbed deeply, like your body had just remembered the horror that marred your once clear skin, hidden so inconspicuously just below your shirt. Such a normal shirt. Such normal attire. Such a normal looking boy. The moment you scratched the surface, nothing was normal about you, was it? You couldn't even be certain your blood flowed red these days anymore. You weren't game enough to check.

Before you could put any more thought into it, you were shaken from you reverie by the clattering of a hundred tablets raining down on ceramic. They bounced around the bathtub, like rainbow rain, until they lay at the bottom of the white basin. They looked so plain. So innocent. So unassuming. They looked wonderful when you fumbled for the faucet, cold water stuttering to life above you and drowning them like they deserved. The colours ran, swirling down the drain like multicoloured sand until there was nothing left but grit and chalky residue. It made sense – your chest ached, your heart ached, your lungs ached. You'd returned to where you'd first felt pain this deep. You could still see a reddish tint to the tiles. Maybe it was the light.

The moment the bathtub was clear, you took a deep breath, followed by a sigh of relief. And then the panic set in.

They were gone.

All of them.

The closest to Bill you'd ever gotten, and you _threw it away!_

You idiot!

You absolute idiot!

You'd been trying for so long to find him and then you finally did and _you chickened out just when you got close enough to say you'd actually made some progress!_ What was wrong with you! What was wrong with you! WHAT WAS WRONG WITH YOU!

Maybe all hope wasn't lost. Maybe you weren't a complete fool. You raced back down to the Basement so fast your head spun. You had dumped the jar out so fast you knew that some had rolled off the table. Maybe they were still there. You didn't care if they'd been on the floor. Who cares if they were dirty, maybe that would help – who knows? You didn't know anymore. You didn't know anything.

You searched for minutes, _hours_ , scrambling around on the floor on your hands and knees. Looking under the table legs, and sweeping aside dust and picking things up and moving them, only to pick them up and move them once more when you ended up in the same spot. You could have sworn that you'd heard, that you'd _seen_ some of them fall off the desk when you upended the jar. But mysteriously, they'd all disappeared. You cursed your waning memory and your black out tendencies. This was important, you had to remember this.

In an act of sheer desperation, you rummaged your way up to the shelf you first found the jar on. Like it would still be there, even though you knew it was in pieces on the ground behind you. It was impossible, but you were out of ideas.

To your surprise, there was something there.

A single pill. Just one, single, solitary round, the size of your pinky fingernail. Just like all the others. You'd never seen one like this before – it was white. None of the pills from the jar were just _white_ , they were all coloured and eccentric looking. This just looked like a pain killer tablet you'd get from the drug store over the counter. What _was_ this?

You picked it up and realised your hands were shaking. You turned the pill over, and were surprised once again to find more detail than you were originally anticipating. A small question mark lay at the centre of the pill. It was set into the chalky top, just like all the others, though you knew that none of those ones had question marks on them. You stared at it, and had the strangest feeling it was staring back at you.

?

It looked so small, so simple. Like it was asking you a mild, unobtrusive question. How's the weather today? How's work going? How would you like your eggs? How would you like to have some fun?

It was on your tongue before you really registered what was going on.

It tasted like every pill mixed together, and also nothing at all. It was difficult to describe, as though the pill wanted you to taste _one_ thing, but your taste buds had other ideas, misinterpreting every taste that had ever crossed your lips and jumbled them up into one experience.

Your pupils blew out so wide, so fast that you physically _felt_ it. Your head rushed, and you seemed blinded by lights that weren't there. You felt as though you were alive, adrenaline pumping deep, thick bursts of blood around your body, but forgetting your brain. Your vision swam and things began to fade out at the edges, like you were drifting in to a soft, gentle sleep.

And then everything was black, forever and ever.

You felt nothing.

You heard nothing.

You saw nothing.

There was a loud sound that suddenly filled the room, just before everything went dark, like an engine roar, taking off inside of your head. It was deafening.

And then there was nothing.

You were nowhere.

You were noone.

Everything was over.

The end.

||><||><||><||><||><||

You're not quite sure when you ran out of oxycontin, but you could have sworn you bought some a few days ago. You _know_ you bought some a few days ago... unless time has escaped you again and that sallow purple jaundice rimming your eyes is not because you haven't slept since last night, it means you haven't slept since last week. How you manage benders like that with enough opiates in your system to drug a horse is the true mystery of Gravity Falls. Where did the time go. You're finding that you're having to ask that question more and more these days. Where _did_ it go, though. _Why_ did it go.

Your body creaks when you move, bones clicking like rusted gears. How long had it been since you moved? What were you even doing? You look around the room in the hopes something will jog your memory.

You're in the Basement.

You're not allowed in the Basement.

Ÿ́̈́̌́oͤ̄ͪͨͦ̚ủ̇ͤr ͛ͣ́͆̾̚b͊ͧ̊͆͐̀ͦo̾dͫͩ̆͛̓͊̓y͋ č͐r͗͂̒͌̽e̿ͩ̐ͭå̆̆̌̇k̀̌ͮͮ͑sͮ͐͊̅̌̓͛ ̿͊̀w͛h̋̓ͬ̑̾eͨͩͩͮͣ͌̂nͣ ̽ͬͩ́̑̋yͪõͨͩ̽̈uͭ̑ͭ͋̑ ͒ͦm̍̂̾ŏ̔̑ͦv̈́ͮ͗̒eͮ̄ͭ̓̏̃̒, ͐b͋͂̀õ͐͊̑͑̆n̍́̂̐͋̈e͋̂̃ŝ ̎̈̉̽̑c̓ͩͭ̋ͧl̂ͯͦ̎̌̓iͦͯ̋͌c͊͌ͣ͌ki̇̿ń͒̽ͨ̒ͮ͊ġ̓̆ͣ̿̓̋ ͬ̇ͦ͐̓͋lͫͫͬ͐̍̽̀i̅k͌͐͆̑ͬͪe̓ ̊̌̃ṙͣ̈́̆̉͋̈́ǔ̈s̓̈̾ͬ͌tͮ̏ͤê͂ͫ̋͊dͯ̈ ͋g̐̍é̌ͦͥͥa̾̅̃r͑̿̂̏ͣͤs̋̿̊̋͛.͗ͧ̾ͧ ͊ͭ̆ͥHͮ͂̊ͪ̆oͫ̅̎ͣͥͪ̚w ͯ̃͆̑̽̑ͯl̐̔ͥo̐̃̂n̔ͩ̅ͨ̒̂́ĝͤ̓͂ͮ ͌ͩha͛dͨ̅̋ͤ̇̇ ͗̑̅̐ͣ̑iͮ̀͋t͗͋̃̉ ͆͑͌̓b̃̏̎̐e̾ͬ̓ͩͬ̃ȅ̅ͮ̿̂͆͋n ̿͒̀s̀̽̒ͧ̐in͑ͥͦͪͤͩ̏c̒̾e̅ͮͩ̐ ͣ̉͐ͬ͋̚y̍o͊uͥ̃̓ͤ ̂̀̒m̓ͦ̆̂͋̍́ov̓e͋̾̾͛ď?̀̋̔ͯͨ Wh̓̔a͊ͥ̿ͥ͛tͤ̓͊ ͌̒̐̓w͋̄ê̄ͣ͋̀̄́rͪ͗͌͒e͌̑͐̔͂̓̎ ͯ̂ŷo̅ŭ͆ͣ̊̉̓ ͤͪ͑èͭv̐́͆̊eͫ̂ͤ̉͗͌̇ńͥͥ̓̔̚̚ ͦ̎̆͌d̅ͨͭ̀ͬ̏o͐̓̆ͣ̚ǐ̄̍ǹ̓̄ͥ͋͑̊g̒ͭͥ̿̀̏͌?̊̇ͧ ̀Y̎ͨ́̓oͮ͌͌ͭ͌̚úͤͩ̽ ̍̀͂̏̇ͦl̍oo̎͑k͛ ̾͑͛aͤ̊̓̅̉ͯrͯ̾̿ͩo͐͌̌͛u̍ͨ͆ͯͭ̈ͮn͗͐̉ͫ̄ḋ͋̔ͪ t̾͋hȇ͆̅̑ r̾̓͛̾͑̅oͧ̒̃ͨͧͯ̉o͂̄̚mͬ́ͦ ĩ̂ͮͯn͑͗͒́ ̏͋t̃̾̂ͭ͂̉hͭͣ̄̈́eͨ̀ͫͧ͑̊͆ ͫ́̽͗h̃o̎̐̽̊͆ͩͭp̄̊e͋͛̄ͣ̐́sͤ̾̎̇ ͮ̍͗̈̍̆̅sͨom̄̎e͛ͭt͌̂̈ͪͨh̆̈͋͐ï̋ͪͭ̿n͗g̽̑ͦ̈̅͛̆ ̈́͗w͗̉i͛ͥ̽͌̀̍l̾̀̑̌lͦ̇ͮ͑͑̅ ̏j̃̋o̒̄̀̅g ̋͌ͯ̿ͣ͂ỳŏ̆ͩ̿ǔ͐̊̐ͤ̒r͆͌ m̐eͣ͗̄ͫ̈́mo̾́rẏͯ͛̒͑̐.̀͆̇ͮ̾ͥͮ

 

̛̘̬͇͖Y͙o̻̻̩͕͉u'̰͖̘̣̯͝r̵̪̜e̢̟͖̮ ͖̹ͅiṇ̪̤̜͍̣ ͕t͡h̨̠͍e͏͕̲ ͏̤̱͎̣̠̘̙B̢a̬̞̪͢s͇e͔̰̠m̯̮͈͈̱̰e̱̤̻̩ṇt͓͎̤̱.͜

̹͕̣͘

 

Y͚͓͔͞o̠̗̼͢u̢͈͎̗̞̘'̙̣͔͕̣̹̫̕r͏̲͈̦̪ͅe̲̜̣̜͞ ̯n̶͎o̯̙͈̭ț̣ ͉͟a̬̱͠ͅl͙̣ͅl̬̰̖̘͟ow̮͉̣͚̩͉͓e͞ḏ̥͓͍̠ͅ ̰̠̪̝̩͚̺͞i̪͢n̯̰̦̲ ̥͓̥͔̝̞t̗̯̯̦̕h͕̣̹̥͎͍e̷̠ ̤͈B̬̯̫a̢̻͇s̝̻͔͞e̮̲ṃ̫̗͟e̛̻̰͈̖̖n̫̘̤̲t̖̟̳̘͖̥͘.̴͎̝͙̹͚ ̪͔̭͠

 

 

Y̨̝͍̲͚̬̍ͬ̇̇͢͞o̧̳̦̘͈̫̱̦ͮ͛́ͮ͠ͅͅǔ̬̤̩͚̣̉̐͂̀̎'̨̒̆̎̏̾ͧ̍ͬ̓҉͎̻̳͙̭̦̬͞r̬̮̬̻͍͂̽ͬ̀ͧ͐̎͟e̵̛͉̯͐̈ͪ͒ ͎͍͊ͬ͗́̓n̢̩̖̠͖̦̺̤͎ͬ̏͌̑͛͐ͦ̾͠o̶̼̰̠̱ͧͫ͞͝t̻̭͍̩̬̋ͥ̍͟͞ͅ ̶̧͙͓̬́ͣͤ̎͆a̛̪͍͚̹̗͎̥̐ͦͤ̇͒͊͢l̈ͪ͒ͯ͏̳̘l̴̬̗͓͉̈́͑ͥͨ̉ǒͥͤ͊҉̸̢̜̟̺͚̺͖̟̬w̢͔̭̦̪͚͉̤̹͕̽ͫ̎͌̾̄̆ͨ͠ë̀ͤͯ̓͛̅҉̙̤͎̳ͅd̵̙͈͎̣̿̽̿̋ ̯̟̳̲̇͂̋i̹̫͑̀̌͟͞n̵͙͎̫̟̳͖ͧ͗̽ͯ̍͊ͦ̈́̈́͜ ͎̣͖̉̂͒̅ͬ͋̽ͣ̈́t͖̼͈̤͍̱̼̜̣̍̒̔͟h̨̛̯͖̭̆ͩͮͣeͩͤ͌̍͑͒͏̨̼͈̮ ̞̣ͧͨB̧̳̬͙̟͉̗̼͆͆͌̓̎ͬ͘͝ā̺̹̼̱̦͖̯̂͘ş̛͈̺͕̱ͩ͋͂ͯ̚ẹ̫̖͔͈̿ͮ͆̉̑̍̋ṁ̥͍̣̂̇̒ͪ̄͂e̢̩͉̭̓͡ñ̵̤̓̓̄͆ͩ͟t̬͉̱̲̻̭ͨͮ͊̽ͧ̐͘.̝̝̠̲̫̙͌̔͆ ̛̟͎̭̄̏̈̇

 

 

Ý̊ͪ͛͑̾̐͏̷̷̨͍̤͓̗̘̰̣̳̼͕̘͓͕͕̩̞̣̝͘o̅ͭ͗ͥ͝҉̷̘͙̦̠͙̠̳̠͈͍̘̗̯͍͎̮̳͙͢u̢̲̝̬͋́̐͊ͩ̋ͣ̎ͤͯ͠'̨̘̬͉̰̻̩̩͓̟̤̺̼̩̫͓̤̫ͣ̓̈́̄͑̍̌̐̍ͤ͒̾̿͆̇͠r̨̹͎̗͖̻̦͎̥̺͔̝̩̬͔̦͉̣̂̂̒̎͒̎̄͊ͩ̓̈͆͋̉͠͝ẽ̢̛̠̼̲̱͎̥͔̝̝̣̣͍̤̗̭̩̀̈̆̏͂̐̃ͥ͊ͣ̍ͧͯ̕̕ͅ ̷̸̠͚̻̗͙̪̪̰̠̖̦̯̘̹̟̙̗̯͌̊ͣ̓͐ͩ̿̀ͩ̎ͫ̆̌͋̐̽͠ͅn̶̻͙̹̰̬͍͎͚̱̫͓͉͈̣̝͔͙͆̄̌̐̾ͬͣ̇ͤ̈ͫ͂͂͌̅̌̄o̙̻̟͔̹ͨͩͪ̀̌͒̿̅͒ͩ͌ͪͨͮͣ̑̈́͘tͫ̎͊͑̿̔̋͊̔͑ͩͥ͏̢҉̟̼̱̮͚̲̞̮̞̤ͅ ̸̴̛̗̰̥̦̥̤͇̫͎͓̠̖̮̯̻̿ͯͨ̊̍̊̅̃̅́̄ͯ͒̌̑ͥ͘ạ̴̶̲̙̜̩͔̹͉̟̘̫̝͕͈̦͓̻͒̽͊ͬͣ̊ͣ͗̈̾͌ͣ̓͞l̴͇̰̹̭͕͈͔ͣ̾ͤ̔ͦ͊̃́ͮ̄̆ͬ̑ͪ̒̃̕͜l̶̷̷͎̰̫̞͇̰̪͈̆̿̇̽͛͌͒̄̾ͅo̡͍̘̭̣̜̣̹̦̤͛̓̅̋͒̎ͫͥ̆ͬͯ͑ͬ͆ͨ͞w̒ͫ̽͋̂͌ͮͦͭ̋̇ͫͬ͏̴͕̤̩̙͚̘͕͈̬̳̠͍̱̜̞e̷ͬ̈͑ͩ̓̊̋̽̎̄ͦ̐ͩ̉͆̄͏̷̞̠̺̤̤̱̻͙̙͍͎̪͢͝d͖̟̙̻͙̠̳̹͍̙̪͎̻̼̭͎͖̫̼ͣ͗̉ͨͮ̾͗̆ͮͪͮ͌͛ͧͮ̕ ̨̤̤̻̹͉̾̃ͮ̐̄̃͂ï̷̵̵̛̭͖̻͇̤̹̦̺̟̰͉̗͉̝̯͇̀̽̉ͤ̐̾ͥ͒̉ͫṅ̵̩̯͙͈̦ͥ̆͗ͣ̊͞ ̨̢̢̢̗͕̺̦̻̜̘̦̤̼̭̠̫̙͕̠̎̂͛ͮ̎̓ͩ͗̇ͣ͐̀͜ͅͅt̜͈͍̭̘͙͉̘͎͐ͪ̈ͪ̉̉͒̓͐̍̓͆̚h̷̨̥̳̝̫̝̣̪̟̼̎̌̈́͐̾ͣ́ͪͥ̉͠͠ȇͫ͗ͤͯ̑̊́ͦ͡҉͍͓̫̼̮̠̪̙̜̟͓ͅ ̵̛͔̞͇͙̣ͪͨ̀͋ͭͧ́̏ͦ͆͑ͧ͐͞͞ͅB̲̜̻̻̯͖͔͕̻̦͚̈̈́̽́̂ͬ͊͘̕ą̨̭̝͙͖͎͕͙̦̠̰͉̫̯ͣͤ͆ͫ͛ͥ̿̎̃͠s̵̨͔̺̯̖̮̺̉ͬ̽ͨ̆̋ͭ̂̉͛͡e̵͕̝̠͍̮͕̗̱̞̹̬͉̲̗͕̞̊̒͗̃̾̿̂ͩ̆͂̌̃̂ͫ̌͡m̸̸̨̢̀̔̃̐̓̾ͮ̿̑͂͏̗̝͖̥̝̻̼̳̥̣̥̞̥͔̰̩̠ͅe̡̨̨͕̜̝̪͙͈̜͖̟̟̬ͮ̔̋͛ͥͮͦ̏͒̉͋ͫ̌̌͌ͧͥ͐n̷̹͎̳͕̦͍ͥ̎͐̓̀̾ͅt̢ͥͮ̒͐ͯ̒̽̅͂̊̓̈͑̍͐͛̑͘͝͏͈̘̣̭͉͖͕̘

 

 

You have the strangest feeling of _déjà vu._

_Your head was pounding, a migraine of an ache that thundered in your temples and all but paralysed you. You were a melted pile of emptiness, barely holding together as your body tried its hardest to tear itself apart from the inside out. You were so in pain you only felt numbness in its place._

_It wasn't until your entire chest had begun to smart as though it would burst that you realised the pain had travelled to the scar beneath your shirt. Every line, every curve of the rune stung as though poison ran afresh through the grooves. You gripped at the centre of your chest, fabric bunching in your fingers as you curled in on yourself, a harsh cry, inhumanly gravelly, tore itself from your split lips. You cried out in agony, tugging at your shirt, trying to tear it away from your stinging flesh. It was as though someone had carved into you afresh with a blade made of concentrated salt and iron._

_The pain was so bad it turned your stomach. You felt suddenly very vulnerable, huddled in a pathetic heap, clutching your chest as it burned you alive. You were sick. You were defenseless. Your back exposed. Your neck exposed. You were entirely helpless. That shouldn't worry you – nobody's feet but yours had graced these floors in what could have been a century for all you knew. But worry you it did. There were eyes watching you from every corner. Every surface. Unblinking. Eyes. Thousands of eyes. Millions of eyes. All blinking, blinking, blinking. Winking in and out of existence. Crawling across the walls in a horrifying mosaic, watching you, watching you, every breath you took, every second you forced yourself to keep living. Always watching. Always knowing. They were everywhere. They were on you. They were inside you._

_Countless eyes._

_Blinking out of sync._

_Watching._

_Waiting._

_Learning._

_Judging._

_You yelled at them, cursing them in whatever way you could. Words you'd never heard before flew from your lips in a gnashed, spittle-studded tirade. Whatever was happening to you was already too terrifying, too alien for you to comprehend. You would have been sick again but you couldn't stop screaming. You were sure that you were turning inside out. It felt as though your chest was being split open, slowly parting where the wounds bled anew and your entire body was being rearranged in a grotesque procedure that would leave you looking like the monster you knew you were._

_You were going to die here. You were going to die alone, in a Basement, where nobody would ever find you until it was too late. Gods, you doubted they'd ever find your body. You would be a meaningless footnote in the history of nothingness. This terrified you. Your palms were clammy, sweat graced your brow and you screamed until you were hoarse, the pain unbearable, the agony unendurable._

_Why you?_

_Why was this happening to you?_

_What had you ever done? Where had you ever gone wrong? What sin, what_ _crime_ _of yours was so abhorrent you deserved such torture. When would it end. When would it stop. Would it ever really stop? Could_ _you_ _ever really trust yourself to stop? What would you have to do to make it stop..._

_Your thoughts took you to a dark place._

_Your hands felt damp and you tore them away from yourself in pure fright, expecting to see a pool of blood leeching out of your shirt and decorating your hands in rose. They were clear. Your shirt was clear. You realised you were crying. Big, fat, ugly tears rolling down your cheeks as you writhed in pure torture, willing it to stop. Praying for anything to make it stop. Begging for it to stop. You had slumped forward until your face was pressed to the floor, cold concrete stinging your cheeks, smelling of ancient dust and copper decay. You bit into your own arm, leaving teeth marks in insane patterns over your own flesh until it was red raw and bruised. Anything to temper the pain._

_In your final thoughts, you thought of Mabel..._

_You saw a bright light, blinding yet comforting. It was welcoming. It was like sunshine on your face. You hadn't been outside in weeks. It was a soft warmth in the pit of your stomach. The last meal you remember eating was stale corn chips and expired juice which had begun to ferment in the back of the fridge. That was four days ago. Those infernal eyes continued to stare, penetrating deeper into your soul, knowing you more intimately than you knew yourself. Judging you. You welcomed the sweet embrace of death..._

_And as soon as it had begun, it was over._

_The pain subsided, trickling away as though a dam had opened up, and the agony was free to siphon elsewhere. Your head cleared up. Your tears stopped. You felt..._ _good_ _._

_You sat up suddenly. Nothing hurt. Everything felt... fine. You felt normal. You shakily grabbed at your own wrist, jamming your thumb into the little groove between the bones and waiting to feel a pulse._

_…_ _nothing..._

_Your blood ran cold._

_But then... a thump. Another. Another. A pulse. A_ _normal_ _pulse. A calm, regular heartbeat._

_What happened?_

_The room felt different._

_The world felt different._

_The entire universe felt different._

_Somehow._

_Howdy, Pinetree!_

You whirl around so fast on the ground you crick your neck. You don't know why you still do, since he's _never_ there.

Except...

… this time he is.

This isn't the Bill you know. Oh no. This is a man. A twisted man, glitching before your very eyes as though the universe _knew_ he didn't belong here and was trying to get rid of him though it had no idea how to do that. It might not be the Bill you know but it's certainly the ones you've seen in your dreams in the dead of night when your subconscious dared to explore the horrifying truth that is you really, really wanted this.

He only seemed to have one eye, wide and all-seeing, like you were used to. Then you blinked and golden amber was looking back at you, with normal, human looking eyes, though one was patched in black cloth. You blinked again and the cloth was now smoke, black and thick like the fog you saw in that strange dreamscape. That felt like an eternity ago.

“B-...b-....” you had practised so many speeches in your head, so many words. You'd had so much time to dwell on what this moment would be like. You had _so much time_ to work out what you would say. You _had_ worked out what you would say. You could recite it to the letter in your sleep. Now that the time had come... you had nothing to say.

_Well you've been through quite a lot, haven't you?_

His voice was haunting, more haunting than it had been when it sounded as though they had been speaking through bullet proof glass when Bill had been in his mind. Your chest began to ache. You weren't sure if it was your heart, a yearning, a _clawing_ at your flesh beating from inside of you. You weren't sure if it was the sigil that branded you as something sinister – a pawn in a game you didn't even know the name for, let alone the rules.

You could do nothing but stare as he moved towards you, gliding on black ice, his boots falling heavy and loud in the emptiness of the Basement. You were still on the floor. Next thing you knew, you were in his arms.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Notes: [I listened to this song way too much while writing this.](https://youtu.be/0PLNsymQi3Y) [This one too.](https://youtu.be/dJLRGz4haXE)Basically, Major to Minor was the playlist to this story's conception, and I would highly recommend listening to some of these tracks while reading to really get into the right space. I'm adding [this song](https://youtu.be/8sRjxi2Dk-8) to the mix as well for something with a little more bass.
> 
> Just a reminder that you can see more of my shit in the following places:
> 
> [Twitter](http://www.twitter.com/ladymermalaid)  
> [Tumblr (main)](http://www.ladymermalaid.tumblr.com)  
> [Tumblr (porny side blog)](http://www.empressmermalaid.tumblr.com)
> 
> Did you enjoy this fic? Chuck me a comment (even if it's just a single, solitary grunt) and you will fill me with such pride and vanity and appreciation I will have no choice but to write more and update more regularly to soak up more of that sweet, sweet recognition. It's that simple!


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